Yes, I am a very strong and proud voice to change the cycle of destruction which most often effects our kids, especially when it comes to Sex Crimes Against Children. However, I must also say that there are more cases of teen girls who use the accusations of sexual offenses to destroy innocent lives. In all the advocacy & education about the prevention and punishment of these offenses, we have become a society that now accepts this accusation without question. We say to ourselves; “She would NEVER lie about such a thing”. Guess what, the teenage child has not changed. If they get in trouble for something they will blame someone else or they will directly lie, even to authority figures, especially if they have some type of anger or resentment towards someone who has broken their perceptions of the teen’s expectations. It is what teens do and many of them do it very well.

In our determination to end crimes against children, we automatically accept their statements without proof of guilt. This has developed because we all push the message that not all acts of harm leave physical evidence, particularly molestation. Unless you have skin cell DNA evidence, any rash can quickly be mistaken as proof. What if the forensic exam and the interview show ‘NO FINDINGS’ of a crime? Should charges still be pressed and the offender still taken into custody? It becomes “He said/She said” and since the accuser is a young girl we just commonly assume the worst.

I push education and awareness of the silent signs of trauma all the time; it’s who I am and the passion in my gut. Now I am seeing how teens are using this manipulation as a way to destroy innocent lives. Imagine if you knew people would believe you and condemn your ‘abuser’ without proof of guilt. Imagine that most of society would so easily accept your statement. Imagine the power a teen would feel when they know if they pushed the prosecutor would most likely offer the best possible plea deal, anything to prevent you having to take the stand and actually testify, leaving you to be cross examined by a skilled defense attorney.

I am learning that more men are having their entire lives ripped apart, having to spend thousands of dollars in hopes to clear their name, having some stranger evaluate all of your behaviors to see if you are a predator, then if there is even five minutes of unsupervised time between you and your accuser; it will take a miracle to keep you out of prison. You loose your job, your family, your friends, and worst of all you have to register for a minimum of fifteen years so that people know you have committed some type of deviate behavior. What a powerful destruction the vengeful teen might feel through their victim’s complete brokenness. The teen suddenly receives all the attention they were not getting before. Their parents begin giving all the support and even if they rarely showed any attention prior to your accusations; now you have the entire school, friends and family who will encircle you with kindness and patience that they never cared to provide before you made your statement. In truth what we are doing is now making innocent good men into lifetime victims. They will never be the same good hearted person who might have been the only person to show any concern for you at all. Maybe their attention was being given to someone else and that’s what angered you into falsely accusing in the first place.

Whatever reason of these false allegations; YOU ARE NOW AN ABUSER!! This is something you will have to carry in your heart for the rest of your life. It is now your guilt that will be judged because of your lies and your false statements against an innocent spirit. Maybe the one you accused is the one you went to for everything, but who will you go to when things go wrong again? Maybe you got some kind of thrill to see how people changed their behavior towards you? Maybe you think you will never be called out on these false statements, but inside you will always know the truth. Sadly, you are not the only one destroyed by your lies. You have destroyed a person’s life with a few powerful lies. Maybe you sent them to prison or perhaps caused a life lasting hell to destroy the good decent life they worked so hard to build. It is now your crime and your own ugly destruction. Now you are no longer innocent. There is no power or sense of achievement in this because you have used such a crucial topic to destroy a good life simply because you got angry about some perceived notion of commitment or love. This is a crime that destroys the lives of millions of children every single day, but now you have used our system and society’s fears as a weapon to kill an innocent soul. Can you lie to yourself forever? Can you lie to your family everyday? Can you look to God, (if you believe in God); can you look at your afterlife and your final judgment without doubt of your acceptance? It’s a fearful thought but teens do this without remorse and without fear of punishment in almost 2% of all investigated accusations.

As a statement from one survivor of vicious traumas and sexual attacks for more than thirty years of my life, it absolutely sickens me to see how both vengeful parents and vengeful teens are using the pity of our society and the laws of our justice system to act out their emotional let downs. It makes me furious to see how easily we allow this to happen. Family and friends stand back and say nothing about their suspicions in the false statements, which makes us part of the abuser’s weapon. If we know that someone is innocent of the accusations against them, we have a duty to say something to those who have the power to hold the accuser accountable and question the details of the statements made. If we do not have at least a pattern of behavior, some type of previous attempt, or evidence of harm; how can our society simply allow these types of cases to continue?

Warn your sons, husbands, fathers, brothers; warn the educators, doctors, police officers, and family around the child. This can easily happen to the man you love, the man you know doesn’t hold a deviate or harmful act in their heart. However, if they make a gesture out of concern or kindness it just might ruin their lives forever.

For instance;

What if a teen send a sex pic of themselves to your son’s phone? Do you know if they keep it or if they share it with others, they become guilty of distributing child porn, but yet NOTHING happens to the young girl who sent the photo in the first place.

What if your 20 year old son is at a party and a young girl posing to be of legal age lures them into the bedroom, or in the car, or in some other similar situation; your son is now guilty of sex crimes against a child.

What if a 30 yr old male, someone who has been close to your family since he was barely legal himself; what if this young man is someone your entire family has turned to in times of crisis (financial, personal, emotional or when your troubled teen girl is acting out). When this adult male does what you expect of them, responding in kindness over and over again, then suddenly after such another incident and thirty minutes of unsupervised time your troubled teen makes a statement to a friend; the wheels of destruction begin. We have developed such a fear of the possibility that ALL MEN ARE PIGS, that this statement begins a vicious cycle of your worst fears and society’s assumption of guilt that it is now their lives that are destroyed without question, without proof, without any forensic findings, and in most cases without even a trial. Example: I just witnessed a case like this and for six months the prosecutor pushed four felony charges threatening a minimum of ten years in prison; or the day your jury selection is set to start you are suddenly offered a Misdemeanor Indecent Assault with no prison time if you accept their deal.

Yes, it happened and the aftermath destruction of this wonderful young man rips through my soul. How in the world is this our justice system? Well, it’s about the prosecutor’s reputation and how many men we can frighten into taking this type of deal as their best option. It’s ugly and it happens. I am a part of this because of how I constantly push for updated legislation to protect our kids, punishment to the harshest extent of the law, and ending the ‘victim blaming’ status quo of our society. Yes, any of us that are advocates in this mission we have scared society into ALWAYS believing the victim, even without evidence of a crime.

Isn’t this another process that we absolutely have a duty to educate our society about? Should we keep pushing the always believe, or should we be demanding that any type of manipulation of our justice system without evidence of a crime is indeed a crime in itself and the accuser, who then makes some extreme victim impact statement, which can be read and rewritten out of any child sexual abuse hand guide. How do we prosecute the real offenders of these crimes when our justice system is being so easily manipulated by troubled teens who hold grudges in disappointments or anger for some imagined notion?

This damages the reputation of every TRUE VICTIM, every SURVIVOR of these heinous acts. It damages innocent lives and rips people to the point of suicidal attempts, or maybe suicidal success. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot convict or even charge these offenses without some type evidence of a crime, not just the conjecture and repeated lies of some troubled or angered teen? Teens will lie, they always have and they always will, especially when it’s about attention or getting out of trouble. It is young children, up to about 12yrs old, who do not show a tendency to lie about these types of actions. I don’t know how we can fix this or if we can at all, but I know that I’ve had many mothers and wives contact me about wrongful accusations that have completely destroyed their loved one’s life, yet sadly there is no remorse or punishment for these practiced FALSE VICTIMS.

Help the men you know protect themselves, insist they NEVER be alone with a teen, even if it’s someone they have helped out through most of their lives. It’s sad our society is either not doing anything about these crimes at all or they have become so afraid to speak against these types of teen accusers who can’t make a clear statement, don’t have to make a clear statement, can actually lie and be caught in some part of a lie in their statement; yet our prosecutors push for another notch on their belt; another man registered as a sex offender and condemned throughout the rest of society. We need to investigate more thoroughly and require evidence of a crime, not repeated changes in statements and even direct lies throughout four or five separate interviews. If it’s not consistent and the evidence doesn’t support a crime; quit using threats of prison against someone you know is most likely an innocent pawn in some troubled teen’s manipulation.

Standing up for true justice is the only way we can stop destroying innocent lives!!! Real victims should be furious about the use of something they may never get to be so easily tolerated as a weapon against decent young men.